Ben Folds Biography & News

Ben Folds Details

About Ben Folds

About Ben Folds tickets

He is a singer, pianist, guitarist, songwriter and producer who found mainstream success as the leader of the platinum -selling alternative rock band Ben Folds Five. But Folds has certainly gone on to a successful solo career, having a plethora of albums under his belt, not to mention several documentaries and collaborations with some of the biggest names in the entertainment and music industries (we're looking at you, William Shatner).

Folds wasn't yet a teen when he first became interested in music. His father, a carpenter by trade, was said to have acquired a piano through a barter trade with a customer unable to pay. Folds learned songs from Billy Joel and Elton John by ear, then later played in several bands as pianist, bassist and drummer. Yet a series of somewhat odd events (a move to Nashville that attracted some -- but not enough -- attention from major labels, dropping out of Miami's Frost School of Music one credit shy of graduating, and even a stint with a New York theater troupe) put him on the path to something bigger.

It was 1995 when the Ben Folds Five released their self-titled debut album, and 2000 when the group temporarily disbanded. Folds then struck out on his own and has toured the world over. In 2012, he reunited with the Ben Folds Five to release a new album, "The Sound of the Life of the Mind." The band continued to tour the world in 2013 and released their first live album, "Ben Folds Five Live," this past summer.

A Nashville resident, Folds owns and operates the profoundly historic RCA Studio A, where everyone from Elvis Presley to Tony Bennett and the Beach Boys have recorded. Folds is also a member of the board of directors of the Nashville Symphony, and recently composed a piano concerto that he debuted as a part of a global symphonic tour.